


Aeneas, Orpheus, Pollux

by seinmit



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare
Genre: Blank Verse, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Journeys To The Underworld to Resurrect Enemy They Killed, Classical References, Gen, Iambic Pentameter, Implied Poetic Cannibalism, M/M, Poetry, Pre-Slash, Screenplay/Script Format, Soliloquy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 21:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: Aufidius declared his rage was gone;A naked corpse has clout that forces truth.





	Aeneas, Orpheus, Pollux

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychomachia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts).

> Even more than usual, this fic wouldn't be possible without my betas. I haven't written in meter for maybe ten years and this was one of the most heavily edited things I have ever written. [Rosefox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosefox) had all the best words and a magical way of rephrasing things so that they fit the meter. Zdenka helped me make the transitions make sense and clarify what I was trying to do thematically. Primeideal stepped up when I was panicky and insecure. All of them pointed out the many, many times I entirely forgot where the stress goes in English words. 
> 
> I hope you like this, psychomachia. I had a lot of fun! 
> 
> I highly suggest, if you can, to read it out loud.

Antium. A public place.  
_The mangled body of CORIOLANUS on the ground. Enter to him AUFIDIUS._

AUFIDIUS  
When Plato had carved nature at its joints,  
His knife split tissue, then dissects to show  
The inner scaffold of the purest Forms.  
And truth came forth from bloody surgeon’s hand,  
His cut that brings in view a maggot light.  
To dust returns all things, but corpses fresh  
Bring gleaming gifts of Apollonian lore.  
The carcass that in Delphi lives has each  
Lone organ tagged and named as virtue’s home.  
When Galen’s work of vivisection ceased,  
The lucky dead were those whose cuts were clean.  
But flesh of Dionysus, torn apart  
Without a calculating touch, was ripped  
By teeth and hands and frenzied claws of beasts  
Made dastardly and wild. The feral men,  
Not far from dogs, have savaged life to scraps,  
Like Pentheus, whose mother took his head  
And thought it was a lion. Plebeians,  
As citizens, know nothing but the crowd.  
Each limb slips out from under mind’s own leash.  
They have no bread but yearned to dine on meat  
Gone sweet with noble rot. The rich have grapes  
And feasts, and they forget themselves with wine.  
The well-born fool who decomposes here,  
This man feared naught but crows and carrion mobs,  
But eagles eat the dead when food is scarce.  
All men come to their deaths like pigs to plates.  
His vengeance lied to him with honeyed words,  
Wine-sweet, and stripping him of all command.  
But madness lurks for Maenads gone to dance  
With Marcius, Caius Marcius, named by us  
For victory in war. This glutton fed  
On bread with belly burst from greed. His ear  
And pride denied the Roman people’s voice.  
The eagle will with living prey make haste  
To kill those creatures fat with marbled meat,  
Though she has hollow bones and cannot heft.  
She has the guts of Rome.  
\--He was a fool.  
His murder saved the state, without a doubt.  
The body politic he aimed to head,  
Has cleansed itself from parasites once more.  
I tell myself this pretty lie to drown  
The memory of breath and heat beneath  
My wormlike hands. He will be food for worms.  
Oh, but the heart of Dionysus was  
The only part remaining from his rite  
Of ecstasy made matter. Titans ate  
All else of num’nous brawn but that sole bite.  
Yet heart was the lone token Jove required  
To make the god twice-born. I hold his heart  
While yet it beats, my palm stained with life’s blood.  
I’ll eat it raw so it can nest in me.  
I’ll venture paths once trod by Trojan kings,  
I’ll steal the strings from singer’s painted lyres,  
I’ll pluck a brother’s fiery love from out  
Of Castor’s star, though what burns in this breast  
Of mine is not so brotherly. I’ll go,  
Set forth to dark and bring him back. And then,  
Resist the urge to strike him down again. 

_Exit AUFIDIUS, heart in hand._


End file.
